Anchorage Daily News

FAIRBANKS -- The trial of former Iditarod champion Jeff King on charges of illegally harvesting a moose is scheduled to begin today in federal court in Fairbanks.

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Jeff King

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King, 52, is charged with taking wildlife in a national park and illegally operating a motor vehicle in a park, both misdemeanors.

King has said he killed the bull moose last September just outside Denali National Park and Preserve's northernmost boundary.

State and Denali Park authorities contend the animal was shot about 600 feet inside the park's border and that King drove an Argo all-terrain vehicle to the site.

Only federally qualified subsistence users are allowed to hunt within park boundaries.

King, of Denali Park, last won the Iditarod in 2006. He finished second in the last race.

An Alaska state trooper and Denali Park ranger contacted King in early September while on a hunting patrol.

King told them he knew he shot the moose close to the park's border but that he had hunted there for nine years and had a good idea of where the boundary was located, according to court filings.

Soon after charges were filed in April, King said he was most bothered by the insinuation that he had tried to deceive authorities by moving parts of the moose out of the park after it was shot.

King said he took the moose back to his camp to cut meat off the bones and make it easier to haul before dumping the bones near the original kill site, about a mile away.

"The fact they think I was hiding something ... the whole thing is humiliating," King said at the time. "To think that I would fool anyone with an armload of femur bones as being a kill site, that's ludicrous."

King said Friday that his lawyer, Myron Angstman of Bethel, had advised him not to make any additional comment.

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